The Resident Evil Recap
We start with some subtitles of exposition on top of an unnecessarily CGed background (black was so pass� in 2002) telling us- and that�s TELLING us, as we get a voice-over to help those in the audience who can�t read- that at the beginning of the 21st Century. The Umbrella Corporation was the largest company in the world, and everyone loved them, and big business is EEEEEEVIL; big businesses such as Sony Pictures Entertainment. Umbrella makes healthcare and computer stuff. Are you getting this? And the do unsavoury dealings, like animal testing and army stuff, such as viral weaponry- things their staff don�t even know about. OMG, this is totally scary.
Then we�re told we�re watching Resident Evil. Dammit.
Slow zoom in on a scientist in a biohazard suit behind glass in a lab picking up a vial with a blue DNA-ish (and EVIL) looking thing inside. RoboHands does the same with a vial with green DNA stuff. Then we�re shown that RoboHands has put a bunch of these vials into a briefcase, along with a gun. The glass shield opens; RoboHands (now not needing his RoboHands) gets the briefcase out, zips it up, and casually tosses a vial of blue so it smashes against a bench. In unnecessary slow mo. The vial releases a gas, which we follow into a vent.
Gassy zoom out from a vent elsewhere. Happy Business Guy is walking along, unwittingly breathing in the fumes of death, and carrying a coffee. Someone whose face we done see bumps into HBG, spilling his coffee. PAY ATTENTION, BECAUSE THAT�S IMPORTANT LATER. �Thankyou!� says HBG, all sarcastic. Now that wasn�t friendly. He laments how disgusting some people are with a curly headed (but not for long) woman as they, along with a bunch of other worker types, step into the lift.
Cut to some animal cages. Some Dobermans freak out as they sense danger afoot.
SECURITY SYSTEM CAM! It�s all high tech here, with some words to the side that really aren�t important, and a blue grid covering our vision. It zooms in on the Blue Vial of Doom lying broken on the floor, which it scans and decides is kinda nasty.
In the labs, an alarm goes off. The many people there are disturbed, but in the office area, Big Eyed Girl on the Phone isn�t worried. Big Eyes tells the person on the other end of the line �It�s nothing.� OR IS IT?
It�s not nothing, because everybody�s locked in.
SSCam takes us to within the lift. The alarm goes off there. Curly Sue decides it�s a fire drill.
Back in the labs, shit is hitting fans. The sprinkler system goes off. Random unimportant people rush to cover computers and �the experiments�. I guess the experiments are some of the evil things Umbrella�s staff DO know about. The Dobermans still aren�t happy.
HBG is not so happy now- he doesn�t dig lifts. He walks from the back of the lift to the front in an attempt to open the doors, because no one else near the doors would have tried that. Then the lights go out, and everything�s blue for some reason. The emergency phone, as Curly Sue discovers, isn�t working either.
More SSCam in the offices. People are getting anxious. Even Big Eyes looks worried. In the labs, a pretty young scientist yells at the security camera that there�s no fire. You can tell the security system totally just wanted her in a wet shirt, though. The other scientist in a room can�t get to code to let them out, making Wet Shirt Girl even angrier. This doesn�t please the security system, and it scans her face. In yellow. Oooooh. The scientist trying to enter the code informs us that the room is sealed, so there�s some drowning fun headed their way. The third scientist in the room, Baldy, says �Fuck the doors!� and grabs an axe, to use on the windows. Nothing more than a tiny hole in the glass is achieved.
Meanwhile, in the lift, pandemonium! Etc. People are tense and fighting, but they�re silenced by the sound of another lift falling right past theirs and smashing to the ground. Then their lift falls, and everyone screams. Then they die.
Just kidding. They stop at level three, for some reason. I don�t know why the survived. To prolong this shit. Fuck you, Anderson. The shaken lift people get up off the floor.
Meanwhile, everyone in the office is gassed. Big Eyes reaches out for help to the camera, but it doesn�t work. They all die. Yay!
Meanwhile, the lift gang get the door open a little. Just enough for Curly Sue to get her head and an arm out. The floor of the lift is just below the ceiling of level three, all the dead gassed people are there to greet her (not in a zombie way), but the gas is gone for some reason. Curly Sue asks for help, and then the breaks start to give. Here comes blood! Everyone tries to get Curly Sue back into the lift, but no. The lift falls, and stops just before Sue loses body parts. Why? I� who knows. Then they try to get her back in, or out, I�m not sure, but then the lift starts to go up again. Once again for no reason. And she actually gets beheaded this time. But not before WE CUT TO BLACK AND MISS IT ALL.
See how excitingly I wrote those last couple of sentences? All the tension I built up? Yeah. That just about represents how scary it is on screen.
Milla Jovovich (according to spell-check it�s meant to be�Jehovah�) wakes up, and she�s in a in a shower, NAKED! Except the fallen shower curtain cover her boobies and cooch. So she gets up, walks to the mirror, and sees a scar just below her shoulder. Then, FLASHBACK CAM! This happens sometimes. The film looks brighter and more washed out, and the camera movements are jerky and random- well, more random than usual- to help us remember this is THE PAST, not THE RIGHT NOW. So, the FBC shows us Milla fainting in the shower, and pulling the curtain down with her. It�s good that that�s there, because otherwise we�d never have known how she got there.
Normal cam again as Milla reaches for a bathrobe and NIPPLE! and puts it on. Ah, Milla�s nipple. I think we were shown that just as confirmation that Milla has breasts, because even in the tightest t-shirt, you can�t tell. That�s basically all that She then wanders into the adjoining bedroom to see the dress from the poster lying on the bed. Blah blah looks out window blah blah finds a note that reads �Today all your dreams come true.� Oh, you mean the movie�s over? Oh. MILLA�S dreams. Continue then. She checks to see if it�s her handwriting (crazy amnesia. There�s a lot of that going around nowadays!) and it�s not, blah blah looks through drawers, blah blah finds a bunch of cool guns.
Here�s trouble. The security system is in this mansion Milla�s woken up in, too. Now in the dress, she walks through� whatever this room is, and picks up a wedding photo with her and a guy whose head totally looks like it�s been badly Photoshopped in. We hear the clinking of glasses. OH! So there was a WEDDING! Thank Christ they told us, because the photo wasn�t enough. Then THERE�S SOMETHING MOVING IN THE REFLECTION OF THE PHOTOFRAME! The accompanying Scary Sound Effect #31 tells us to be chilled to the bone. Milla looks behind her. Nothing but a big plastic sheet on a statue, blowing in the wind. �Hello?� she asks. She walks cautiously to the door. Ramp up the tension, Anderson. Ramp it up!
Milla finds a light switch, and we get an external look at the mansion lighting up. Nice place. Milla wanders outside, and her second �hello� is cut off by a flock of birds all at once flying from nearby trees. Okay, that scare actually got me, but it was totally cheap. And there�s wind. Scary wind! Or, Milla thinks so, she runs indoors, where someone grabs her.
Hey! It�s Mia Kirschner�s fianc� from The L Word! Well, she was his fianc�e, but then she cheated on him with a woman, so then they got married, THEN they broke up. I don�t know what happened next, because I stopped caring about the show when they cut down on Mia�s tit shots.
Anyway, Mr Mia tells Milla to get down and throws her to the floor as a bunch of commando guys crash through the windows. It�s all very wacky. They grab Mr Mia and handcuff him, while the CRUNCHING GUITARS and DRUMS pump our adrenalin to the MAX. While a commando goes to a whatever panel on the wall and checks it with a computer on his wrist yet another commando steps into the room, and heads straight for Milla. He grabs her and tells her to �report, soldier!� but she�s thoroughly perplexed!
Quick note: From here on in, don�t blame me if I get a couple of the commando�s names wrong. One or maybe two of them is actually mentioned by name, and they�re all in the same uniform, and it�s all annoying and confusing.
Meanwhile, wrist commando tells Milla�s commando that the defence level is high or has been switched on or some shit, and �She�s probably still suffering the side effects�. Gas amnesia. Gotcha. Channelling Heather Matarazzo, Mr Mia tells the commandos, who aren�t getting an ID match on him, �I just TRANSFERRED they PROBABLY don�t even HAVE me on FILE yet!� Milla�s commando takes of his mask to reveal a black guy- would it be politically incorrect for me to refer to him as Black Guy from now on? It distinguishes him from everyone else, and it�s not like he lasts that much longer anyway- and decides to take Mr Mia with them. He protests as the commando who cuffed him reveals herself to be Michelle Rodriguez. Michelle says �Blow me�. She�s so hardcore.
Black Guy (maybe I�ll just call him �Head Commando�) says with unnecessary intensity �Prep for entry to the hive.� Commandos do so, everyone walks through some hidden doors, and the guitars finally shut up.
Now we�re in a concrete room full of crates and shit. Everyone who isn�t Milla or in handcuffs does it in a very army-like fashion. There�s a clock counting down from two hours, forty eight minutes. Until� whatever. They find a single carriage train and hop on. The powers off, but Michelle�s here to fix it. She gets underneath the carriage with a torch in her mouth- blowjob subtext- and sees something has torn a hole in some mesh down the track. Then there�s another cheap scare as Unnamed Commando #4 pops his head under the carriage. �Jumpy?� he asks? Michelle fixes the train, and we�re away.
Heading down the tracks, Milla looks at Michelle, which Michelle takes as a threat or something. Then The Man from Snowy River asks Michelle if the train door is sealed. She tells him it is, but he knows women can�t be trusted so checks it himself. Michelle is none too pleased and smiles at him like an angry lesbian. Unnamed Commando #4 fiddles with the door, and it opens and an unconscious guy falls into the carriage. Yeah. It freaks UC4 out, and Michelle asks: �Jumpy?� BAM! What a call-back! To TWO MINUTES AGO!
Milla gets another case of the flashbacks, as we see her at her wedding to unconscious guy. I�m still confused. So are they implying that�s Milla�s husband? I need more. We get a flash of the wedding photo from earlier. I�m� still not there. Resident Evil, give me more. We get a close up of the wedding ring on Milla�s finger, then unconscious guy�s. And they match. OH! They�re MARRIED!
Milla takes her ring off- Mr Mia notices- inscribed is �Property of Umbrella Corporation�. Because evil corporations who basically rule the world need to keep track of these things. Husband (they don�t seem to name him, so that�s what I�ll call him) comes to, and Unimportant Female Commando tells him to lie still while she checks his eyes can see her torch or whatever. We learn he has amnesia too. I don�t know why they cuffed Mr Mia but not him.
The train arrives at its destination. Everyone gets off the train while SSCam scans the lot of them. They arrive at a big important looking metal door. Milla demands that Head Commando Black Guy tells hear what�s going on, all hardcore like.
And� I guess that�s all it took for him to divulge the information. I wonder what they were talking about on the train during the bits we didn�t see. �Anyone got some gum?� perhaps? �Did anyone catch last night�s Frasier? Hilarious.� �I�d answer you, but I�m an amnesiac.�